[SUGGESTION] Nex charge and weapon swap

a lot of this is now going to be scrapped(?)

If that happens a new fork could just be created and called something else to avoid confusion.

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FruitieX can't maintain his balance anymore as he has too much work/school going on... So basically we need to find someone else to maintain the balance, and the only people capable and willing to do it really dislike many of the changes in FruitieX's balance. So for now, the candidates for taking over are tZork and me... In this case we will probably merge mine and tZork's balance together to create something most ideal.

So far the "maintaining" seems to consist of buffing the MG and nerfing the Crylink secondary. Anyone who knows how to use a text editor and has basic addition/subtraction skills in math are capable of doing this. Hell if everyone is such an egoist that they must modify every single cvar in order to fix these small problems, if it indeed comes to this, I'LL DAMNED DO IT MYSELF

NEW POST SEPARATOR !

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I'm not being funny..but how accurate do you think the survey's are seriously going to be?

So we've gone in a good direction, and then a lot of this is now going to be scrapped(?) and were (SORRY, you and tZork) are going to work on something new, which is going to need a whole new amount of testing and will now become the default etc etc etc. Please tell me i've got the wrong the end of the stick here.

Whatever you decide to do I will try it out atleast long enough to form an opinion, but what's to stop me going 'this is shit' and all those comment's we see after people NOT playing long enough, which is what I expect a lot of the people who filled out that survey have done, most likely not played long enough, this is why I'm quite surprised your putting so much faith into the questionnaire (survey). They generally are not that accurate.

You've got it wrong I'm not saying that the survey is concrete results for determining behavior like that... But...

Okay, last time I checked (few days ago, so early results) this is the issue:
Default balance scored a little higher in percentage of people who like it than mine. (Something like my balance had 5% less votes than his) -- My balance is very different from default, and since the default has the advantage of more people trying it than mine -- The general conclusion we can make is that "People don't like the default balance very much"

[16:43:52pm] <divVerent> "almost as many votes as default" is good
[16:44:05pm] <divVerent> just shows how bad FruitieX's is received
[16:44:06pm] <divVerent> is what I say

It is very obvious that default balance isn't like very much -- it seems that most of the NA community has grown to like my balance much more and a small portion of the EU community also has, and this is a clear indicator as to why default balance is BAD right now. So sincerely just wait until the results are made public.

BTW this can be contrasted with physics results... An overwhelming 80% prefers and enjoys the default physics, while only ~50% prefers the default balance. Think about that for a second.

As to scrapping the old work: That's not really true, it's not as if we're scrapping all of the inprovements to the weapons we got from FruitieX or even all the feedback we got. But we will probably rebase the balance to something else, this is because it's impossible to change too many weapon behaviors (to something better/more liked) without doing that. One example is the rocket launcher -- in default, the guiding is a useless gimmick... In my balance, I made it actually useful and justified the use of faster rockets. We can't change this without rebalancing the damage ANYWAY, so why not go from a new base?

So we have 3 choices:
Go with default balance and change a shitload of things about it, effectively making it almost a new balance which needs more playtesting TOTALLY again..
Go with my balance which already has adapted most of the changes we want to make, and has the most playtesting with those changes (It's not as if my balance is untested... It's widely used in NA servers and several other servers have used it for a while. I've also been working on it for months, and I know what i'm doing when it comes to maintaining a balance.)
Go with tZork's balance which is very similar to mine in some ways, but has little playtesting and hasn't been updated in a while

Most likely we'll go from my balance and base our improvements off of that, as it is already the most liked in some cases and already is the most finished in respect to the future of the default balance.

So yes: Surveys are useless for deciding upon/determining certain things about balance, but they ARE useful for seeing what percentage of players actually likes those things. Those are different, don't confuse this

Problem with adding new weapons is that then people have to update their NetRadiant, then update the maps that have already been made. The Mine Layer (while a very good weapon) is proof of this, it was added late enough in the development that it only made it into one major map, oh and BTW the person that made the map also made the weapon.

And look at how long the Rifle was ignored in Nexuiz.

I'm for merging the TAG and Hagar, this would reduce the weapons we already have (although this too would require updating maps etc.)

And let's try not to turn this into a flame war, try to move forward and make progress.

I won't reply to Mirio or Kojn as we talked on IRC - However FruitieX:

No there are more things which need done, and the majority of other players/developers would prefer other behavior for some things. Especially: Nexgun charge (We went with autocharge, we took a poll of developers to determine this) -- Electro should not be lightning on primary, but the lightning gun should be remade elsewhere -- You need to fix the animtimes with switch delay (lower animtime, higher switch delay) -- etc etc.. There's a lot of weapon updates we want to do too, merge of seeker and hagar, adding a new gun, extra timeout options for minelayer (So it isn't overpowering in CTF and LMS), etc etc etc etc And that's just what we have on the drawing board NOW, let alone what will be there in the future.

I don't think the default balance was good for the mass public of Xonotic, and that's what everything points to... so.... (It's one of the main reasons a lot of NA players don't like Xonotic too... though I think some of them are discouraged by the physics sadly, even though they're basically perfect imo )

There's more involved than just editing a few text files to keep up maintenance on the balance, FruitieX Especially when a game is in development.

And nowego4: The problem of netradiant is not really a problem, for 2 main reasons: #1: Netradiant will change before a full release, and #2: Maps will change before a full release.


You guys need to remember, balance and physics (and pretty much ANYTHING ELSE) is _SUBJECT TO CHANGE_ until the moment we do a full release. It was intentional that we made it a "preview" BECAUSE of potential balance changes in the future. After that point we can never re-base the balance/physics again, and from then on it will only be minor changes. That's why we CAN switch bases now if we want to.

Finally FruitieX: If you want your own balance, then just make a mod. That's what i'm going to do if i'm not happy with the default balance.

My point was that it's easier to change existing weapons--especially when we already have so many. Not that we can't or shouldn't add new ones (although we do have an excess these days), but the new weapon will take a lot longer to get into the "flow". Just pointing this out, not saying that you can't.

...You (At FruitieX) need to fix the animtimes with switch delay...

Now I'm confused...

FruitieX can't maintain his balance anymore as he has to much work/school going on...

One more thing, how do you determine who is in the "NA" crowd, or is European? Certainly you don't go by the servers, I play on foreign ones more often just because they have more people on them. Just curious.

My point was that it's easier to change existing weapons--especially when we already have so many. Not that we can't or shouldn't add new ones (although we do have an excess these days), but the new weapon will take a lot longer to get into the "flow". Just pointing this out, not saying that you can't.

I'm not disagreeing? I'd rather remove weapons even, in favor of more unique ones. imo a weapon should only be added if it adds a new or unique gameplay mechanic, otherwise it shouldn't be in the game. divVerent has the "It doesn't matter, everything can go in anyway" mindset unfortunately, so removing weapons is hard to get past him... even though imo we have too many and they are redundant in a lot of ways.

BTW balancing a new weapon out with an already stable balance is trivial to a maintainer, but there's one reason new weapons did so badly with Nexuiz 2.5 No one REALLY balanced it out properly as there was no one managing the balance directly.

...You (At FruitieX) need to fix the animtimes with switch delay...

Now I'm confused...

FruitieX can't maintain his balance anymore as he has to much work/school going on...

#1: There's an issue with weapon switching where there are two different methods of managing switch time. One is animtime = animation time.. It's the amount of time after firing the weapon that there is a pause, e.g. no switch can be done until after this time. And then there is the switch delay itself, which is the amount of time to play the switch animation. Right now he uses very high animtimes (which is bad, as they're higher than the time of the actual animation of the weapon) and a very low switch delay.. This means the switch is fast, but there is a weird waiting period before you can switch which is awkward. This NEEDS fixed imo, as right now it's basically making the weapon combos in this game feel very clunky/slow.

I'm even fine with him using the same timing (0.4 animtime with 0.1 switch delay is equal to 0.3 animtime and 0.15 switch delay) but this just needs fixed.

#2: He's on the forums and such some times, but he's never around with development anymore Which is where a maintainer is needed most (paying attention to development)

One more thing, how do you determine who is in the "NA" crowd, or is European? Certainly you don't go by the servers, I play on foreign ones more often just because they have more people on them. Just curious.

Well maybe most of the NA clans and all of HOCTF? Dokujisan can back me up on this one with regards to "what the NA community likes most."

BTW: FruitieX being too busy to develop:

Code:

[17:30] <Samual> detrate: But well, seriously convince tZork or FruitieX (or both) to help me with this directly and I could work on it
[17:31] <Samual> FruitieX has been lazy recently :P (took a page from my book)
[17:31] <FruitieX> lol i trol u
...stuff about scoreboard and such...
[17:33] <Samual> FruitieX: SO HOW ABOUT ACTUALLY DOING SOME USEFUL WORK
[17:33] * Samual looks at you
[17:33] <FruitieX> nope must study
[17:33] <Samual> Eh fine. When are you able to get a break?
[17:34] <FruitieX> samual, like next summer

For context: http://pastebin.com/PRcchdWg

Thankfully tZork has since shown interest with game mode re-writes

One more thing, how do you determine who is in the "NA" crowd, or is European? Certainly you don't go by the servers, I play on foreign ones more often just because they have more people on them. Just curious.

Well maybe most of the NA clans and all of HOCTF? Dokujisan can back me up on this one with regards to "what the NA community likes most."

So they like Nexuiz 2.5 balance the most , right?

Oh, this is a balance thread too? o.O

Those balance threads still get me by surprise. Anyhow could we try not to throw everything overboard that has been thoroughly tested and found generally agreeable? I am all for working off the balance we now have, heck, I would even support the old electro behavior coming back. But please don't throw it ALL away.

I for one do actually like the nex charging, I'd add ammo consumtion to it and there you go. Nice balancing feature that requires skill to use effectively. But I also like the idea of charging automatically when moving fast, I think this idea was mentioned by myself already back in the alienTRAP forum when we discussed nerfing the nex :o)

What I don't want to see is changing now everything and then in summer FruitieX has time again and we change everything back again. Then I think it would be more productive to spend the working time on coding my proposed game mode "balance fight" (http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=1444). I mean, it's your [read: the dev's] time, so you must know how to spend it, I am just saying. :o)

Edit: and what I definitely don't want to see is making the laser weaker again! Hands off that weapon or I'll... I will... uhm... for a start I will, ... I mean,... well you will see what happens then. You know I am persistant about that weapon and I will continue being so.

You need to fix the animtimes with switch delay (lower animtime, higher switch delay)

WHY?

You make the game slower by doing this, because:

1. "Changing your mind" and having to switch to another weapon will always take longer

2. Weapon combos won't be any faster if you lower the animtimes but increase the duration of the switch animation to compensate, unless of course if you do this on the Rifle (in which case you can just remove the weapon because it will have the same functionality as the Nex).

Not against removing the Rifle btw, and some extra damage on the Nex for a headshot could be cool in case you do this.

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There's a lot of weapon updates we want to do too, merge of seeker and hagar, adding a new gun, extra timeout options for minelayer (So it isn't overpowering in CTF and LMS), etc etc etc etc

So? Just add that to the existing default balance instead of fucking over "the other half" of the comunity.

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Finally FruitieX: If you want your own balance, then just make a mod. That's what i'm going to do if i'm not happy with the default balance.

No thanks, I'll keep playing Team Fortress 2 until this shit has settled kthx.

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What I don't want to see is changing now everything and then in summer FruitieX has time again and we change everything back again.

I won't do that. I promise.

Oh, this is a balance thread too? o.O

Yes. Of course. Every other thread on these forums is a balance thread. [sarcastic]It is expected when you throw out one balance in favor of a new one every week to gain the approval of 0.5% more players... wait. It was less than that, something more like -5.2%.[/sarcastic]

I for one do actually like the nex charging, I'd add ammo consumtion to it and there you go. Nice balancing feature that requires skill to use effectively. But I also like the idea of charging automatically when moving fast, I think this idea was mentioned by myself already back in the alienTRAP forum when we discussed nerfing the nex :o)

Yes. I really don't get what confuses people about it.

And why not both Lance + Manual Charge?

Edit: and what I definitely don't want to see is making the laser weaker again! Hands off that weapon or I'll... I will... uhm... for a start I will, ... I mean,... well you will see what happens then. You know I am persistant about that weapon and I will continue being so.

Yes. Laser is just about perfect now, don't need to screw it up.

Major OT derailment. thread closed.